Nikwax backs Greenpeace position
07/11/2012
Founder and chief executive of Nikwax, Nick Brown, said his company has been providing water-repellent aftercare for boots and clothing for more than 30 years, but has never used PFCs in its products “because of health and environmental concerns”.
Mr Brown said: “Our assessment is that the whole PFC family shares characteristics that are likely to cause harm, and therefore should be avoided wherever possible. The Greenpeace report makes the same assertion very clearly.”
Of seven brands named in the report, only one, Vaude, has said it will move away from PFC. Jack Wolfskin said it preferred not to comment. The other five (Patagonia, The North Face, Marmot, Mammut and Kaikkialla) said they will continued to use PFCs. In most cases, however, they will move away from the 8-carbon chain structure (C8) that has been widely used in PFCs until recent years. They are working with their suppliers to replace C8-based finishes with shorter-chain compounds, typically C6.
Nikwax’s position is that C6 perfluorinated polymers can degrade to other persistent PFCs such as PFHxA. “These may, as is suggested in some fluoroindustry-financed research, be less bio-accumulative. However this evidence is sparse, and in any case bio-accumulation is only one property of concern. Water-repellents that are based on C6 chemistry will biodegrade to a host of intermediate chemicals, of which few, if any, will have been tested for safety in humans. PfHxA belongs to a group of chemicals that have been shown to have cytotoxic and carcinogenic effects.
“We consider it reasonable to suspect that C6 based chemistry will share many of the problematic characteristics of longer-chain species. In the absence of strong evidence to the contrary, and in line with a precautionary approach, we will not risk our customers’ health by putting these chemicals into their homes. Neither will we recommend their continued use in the wider industry.”
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